ATLANTA — For more than a year, the daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. put off taking her oath as president of the landmark civil-rights group co-founded by her father — and now she doesn’t want the job at all.
The Rev. Bernice King’s decision to abandon the Southern Christian Leadership Conference comes at the worst possible time for the once-proud organization, which has struggled to stay relevant as it split into two factions, had its finances scrutinized and saw its former chairman indicted last week on theft charges.
The SCLC, which led the movement to end segregation in public facilities and open access to the ballot box for millions of black Americans, has fallen so far that former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young said he told Bernice King she had better things to do with her time.
“We should’ve closed it down years ago,” Young, who worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr., said Friday after King’s announcement. “I saw this as a lost cause a long time ago.”
When King became the first woman elected SCLC president in 2009, she had vowed to reinvigorate the organization by expanding the group’s reach to more women and a younger generation.
Soon after, the SCLC’s chairman and treasurer were accused of financial mismanagement, and squabbling among the group’s leaders landed the splintered factions in a courtroom. She remained largely silent as the group’s troubles escalated over the past 16 months.
King told The Associated Press that in the end, she and the group’s leaders didn’t agree on how to move forward.
“In light of that, and attempts on several occasions to try to reach out and dialogue, this is where I’ve landed,” she said. “Essentially, I knew that I was not going to be merely a figurehead, so I had to make a critical decision. I look forward to continuing the legacies of my parents and establishing my own legacy.”
